William Anderson Alexander (June 6, 1889 – April 23, 1950) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player and coach. He served as the head football coach at the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part ...

from 1920 to 1944, compiling a record of 134–95–15. Alexander has the second most victories of any Tech football coach. Alexander's 1928

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets is the name used for all of the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), located in Atlanta, Georgia. The teams have also been nicknamed the Ramblin' Wre ...

have been recognized as

national champions National champions are corporations which are technically private businesses but due to governmental policy are ceded a dominant position in a national economy. In this system, these large organizations are expected not only to seek profit but als ...

by a number of selectors. Alexander was the first college football coach to place his teams in the four major post-season bowl games of the time:

Sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or do ...

Cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

and

Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

. His teams won three of the four bowls. The

1929 Rose Bowl The 1929 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game and the 15th annual Rose Bowl Game. Played on January 1, 1929, the game saw the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (also known at the time as the Georgia Tech Golden Tornado) defeat the California Gold ...

win, which earned his team the national championship, is the most celebrated because of the wrong-way run by

California's California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Roy Riegels Roy "Wrong Way" Riegels (April 4, 1908 – March 26, 1993) played for the University of California, Berkeley football team from 1927 to 1929. His wrong-way run in the 1929 Rose Bowl is often cited as the worst blunder in the history of college foo ...

. Alexander was also the head

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

coach at Georgia Tech for four seasons from 1919 to 1924. He was inducted into the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vo ...

as a coach in 1951.

Player

Alexander played football under

John Heisman John William Heisman (October 23, 1869 – October 3, 1936) was a player and coach of American football, baseball, and basketball, as well as a sportswriter and actor. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College, Buchtel College ...

and was appointed captain of the "scrubs." In his senior year he played in the Georgia and Clemson games long enough to win a letter. Alexander graduated from Georgia Tech in 1912 with a degree in

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

Valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution. The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA) ...

of his class, he was also a brother of the

Kappa Sigma Kappa Sigma (), commonly known as Kappa Sig, is an American collegiate social fraternity founded at the University of Virginia in 1869. Kappa Sigma is one of the five largest international fraternities with currently 318 active chapters and col ...

fraternity.

Coach

Taking over for Heisman

"Old Aleck," as Alexander was called, succeeded John Heisman as the head coach at Georgia Tech in April 1920. Alexander had been an assistant coach for Heisman and a math teacher in the classroom at Georgia Tech. The '' Technique'' said of him: Alexander also had a sense of humor. Whenever he diagrammed a football play, he always drew very small "x's" to represent Georgia Tech players and very large circles to represent the opposing players. As a new coach, he led Georgia Tech to three

Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) was one of the first collegiate athletic conferences in the United States. Twenty-seven of the current Division I FBS (formerly Division I-A) football programs were members of this conferen ...

titles (

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its own ma ...

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in Brazil. ** The Spanish liner ''Santa Isabel'' breaks ...

1922 Events January * January 7 – Dáil Éireann (Irish Republic), Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes. * January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éirean ...

) and its second national championship in

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris Bazhano ...

Buck Flowers Allen Ralph "Buck" Flowers, Jr. (March 26, 1899 – April 8, 1983) was an American college football player who was a halfback for the Davidson Wildcats football team of Davidson College in 1917 and for the Georgia Tech Golden Tornado football ...

and

Red Barron David Irenus "Red" Barron (June 21, 1900 – October 4, 1982) was an American football and baseball player. Barron was a three-sport letterwinner at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In football, he was named second or third team All Ameri ...

starred on his first teams. Alexander was the first college football coach to place his teams in the four major post-season bowl games of the time:

, and

. His teams won three of the four bowls.

Doug Wycoff

Describing the most spectacular play he ever saw, he cites one from the 1925 game against Vanderbilt. Star back

Doug Wycoff Stephen Douglas Wycoff (September 16, 1903 – October 27, 1981) was an American football running back for the New York Giants, Staten Island Stapletons, and Boston Redskins in the National Football League (NFL), the Newark Bears in the fi ...

was hurt, such that he had to use his substitute Dick Wright. On a muddy field, Wright ran off tackle and dodged Vanderbilt's safety

Gil Reese David Argillus "Gil" Reese (January 14, 1901 – May 30, 1993) nicknamed "The Tupelo Flash" was an American football, basketball, and baseball player for the Vanderbilt Commodores of Vanderbilt University. He was captain of all three his senior ...

, "usually a sure tackler," to get the touchdown to give Tech a 7 to 0 victory. Coach Alexander further recalled "The work of Douglas Wycoff against Notre Dame two years in succession was brilliant in the extreme, as was his plunging against Penn. State when we defeated them twice."

The Plan

During the 1927 season, Alexander instituted "the Plan." Tech and UGA had just renewed their annual rivalry game in 1925 after an eight-year

hiatus Hiatus may refer to: * Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure * Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy *''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes'' * G ...

. Georgia was highly rated to start the season and justified their rating throughout the season going 9–0 in their first 9 games. Alexander's plan was to minimize injuries by benching his starters early no matter the score of every game before the UGA finale. On December 3, 1927, UGA rolled into Atlanta on the cusp of a National Title. Tech's well rested starters shut out the Bulldogs 12–0 and ended any chance of UGA's first National Title. William A

1928

Alexander's 1928 team would be the very first Tech team to attend a bowl game. The team had amassed a perfect 9–0 record and was invited to the

to play

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Tech traveled by train to meet the awaiting Golden Bears. The game was a defensive struggle with the first points being scored after a Georgia Tech fumble. The loose ball was scooped up by California Center

and then accidentally returned in the wrong direction. Riegels returned the ball all the way to Georgia Tech's 3 yard line. After Riegels was finally stopped by his own team, the Bears opted to punt from the end zone. The punt was blocked and converted by Tech into a safety giving Tech a 2–0 lead. Cal would score a touchdown and point after but Tech would score another touchdown to finally win the game 8–7. This victory made Tech the 10–0 undefeated national champions of the

1928 college football season The 1928 football season has both the USC Trojans and the Georgia Tech Golden Tornado claim national championships. USC was recognized as champions under the Dickinson System, but the Rose Bowl was contested between the No. 2 and No. 3 Dickinso ...

. It was Tech's second national title in 11 years.

Depression

Coach Alexander found campus spirit to be particularly low during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. His football program and the other athletic teams had very few student fans attending the games. His football team faded in success after 1928, not posting another winning record until 1937. He helped to establish a spirit organization known as the Yellow Jacket Club in

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will b ...

to bolster student spirit. The group would later become the

Ramblin' Reck Club Numerous Georgia Tech legends and traditions have been established since the school's opening in 1888, some of which have persisted for decades. Over time, the school has grown from a trade school into a large research university, and the traditio ...

All-Alexander Era team

*QB

*HB

Stumpy Thomason John Griffin "Stumpy" Thomason (February 24, 1906 – April 30, 1989) was a professional American football player who played running back for seven seasons for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Eagles. He played college football for th ...

*HB

*FB

*E Bill Jordan *T Frank Speer *G Oscar Davis *C

Peter Pund Henry Rudolph "Peter" Pund (January 27, 1907 – October 17, 1987) was an American college football player. He was elected to the Georgia Tech Hall of Fame in 1958, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1977, and the College Football Hall of Fame ...

*G Harvey Hardy *T

Vance Maree George LaVance "Vance" "Dutch" Maree (December 20, 1909 – November 20, 1976) was an American football and basketball player for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Early years Vance Maree was born on Dec ...

*E Bob Ison

On January 30, 1945, Coach Alexander retired as head football coach but remained Georgia Tech's athletic director until his death in 1950. Alexander has the second most victories of any Tech football coach.

Legacy

Alexander was succeeded as head coach by one of his assistants,

Bobby Dodd Robert Lee Dodd (November 11, 1908 – June 21, 1988) was an American college football player and coach, college baseball coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Georgia Tech from 1945 to 1966, compil ...

, who became the most successful head football coach in Georgia Tech history. Dodd lionized Coach Alexander, which was later reflected in his coaching style. "He taught me to treat athletes as men, not boys - to never use their failings as an alibi for a loss," Dodd said. William Alexander Courtyard

The

Alexander Memorial Coliseum Hank McCamish Pavilion, nicknamed The Thrillerdome and originally known as Alexander Memorial Coliseum, is an indoor arena located on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the home of the Georgia Tech Yellow ...

(recently renamed Hank McCamish Pavilion), the home arena of Georgia Tech's basketball teams, was named after him.

Coaching tree

# Dad Amis: played for Georgia Tech (1920–1923), head coach for Furman (1928–1931). #

: assistant for Georgia Tech (1931–1944), head coach for Georgia Tech (1945–1966) #

Bill Fincher William Enoch Fincher (November 12, 1896 – July 17, 1978) was an American college football player and coach. He played the End (gridiron football), end and Tackle (gridiron football position), tackle positions for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jacke ...

: played for Georgia Tech (1916–1920), head coach for William & Mary (1921), assistant for Georgia Tech (1927–1928). # Don Miller: assistant for Georgia Tech (1925–1928). # Mack Tharpe: played for Georgia Tech (1926), assistant for Georgia Tech (1928–1941).

Head coaching record

Football

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, William 1889 births 1950 deaths American football ends American football quarterbacks Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets athletic directors Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football coaches Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football players Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets men's basketball coaches College Football Hall of Fame inductees Basketball coaches from Kentucky Coaches of American football from Kentucky Players of American football from Kentucky